I've seen a lot of reviews refer to The Pathless as a 'Journey like' title. I can certainly see the connection as the game's developer Giant Squid was initially formed by ex-ThatGameCompany staff. Their debut title Abzu certainly didn't stray too far from that initial vision creating a short beautiful underwater fantasy title. The Pathless is more than that though, it takes aspects of those types of games and expands it into a much bigger adventure game. In my opinion for both better and worse.
You control a nameless archer trying to end a curse put on an island by the Godslayer corrupting the former animal gods that resided there. Each has it's own domain it rules over you have to cleanse section by section by exploring ruins and solving puzzles before culminating in a fight against the corrupted god at the end.
Exploring around, at least for me was extremely satisfying, though not at first. It has a unique mechanic where you use your bow to shoot at floating talismans by holding R2 which give you a burst of speed and an energy bar allowing you to keep running until it drains. These talismans are everywhere so if you continuously chain your shots you can smoothly sprint across the plains, fields and forests. The talismans when aiming have a bar themselves with two points, a full charge and a half charge. If you let go at the right time at the half way point you perform a 'skill shot' which means you fire faster and get a bigger speed boost. The game doesn't tell you this that I saw though and I found out by looking up trophies. with practice this can become second nature allowing a really smooth movement from location to location.
When not on a flat surface you can jump and grab onto your pet eagle to glide. shooting talismans gliding gives the same speed boost in mid air and a slight lift to keep your momentum going. The eagle can also flap to lift you a set amount up. You only have a certain amount of flaps which grow as you explore. Much of the environment has puzzles that as rewards give gold gems. Collect enough of these gives you another flap which allow you to explore and travel higher faster, getting to more puzzles to unlock more flaps. Though the flaps can take some time to unlock requiring a lot of gems I did enjoy the exploration and reward loop where they tie into each other.
The puzzles are going to be hit and miss depending on how you like your puzzling. I like mine simple enough I don't get frustrated and can work out what to do relatively quickly then spend time actioning which is what you get here. The mechanics are limited though, using your bow to light torches, or bounce arrows from mirrors mixed with using your eagle to carry pots of pull some items is your entire repertoire.
The simple puzzles and smooth traversal is exactly what I wanted. The gorgeous art design of ruins, statues, mountains and skylines accompanied by a stellar soundtrack by Austin Wintery makes playing the Pathless is a beautiful and relaxing experience.
Until it isn't.
Where my enjoyment of The Pathless comes to a screeching halt is everything related to the story. The story itself isn't very good. The Godslayer is just comically evil for no reason I can fathom. He wants to kill the gods and reforge the world for an incredibly vague reason about a path to truth and even hunting through the lore whilst exploring I couldn't see a more in depth reason then he's just a tosser. I can live with this though, it's an established trope to give an antagonist I've seen many times before. Where it really grates me though is the game actively gets in my way of enjoying it by having each corrupted animal god have a red storm in it's area until cleansed. the corrupted god is inside it and the storm moves around sometimes especially when you first enter their domain seems to home in on you. If you go into it you have to do a stealth sequence where it searches for you whilst you try to get to your eagle. If you're caught you can permanently lose some gold gems.
It's awful.
whilst exploring an area I would sometimes have to wait until the storm moved away to avoid it so I could carry on exploring. It actively gets in the way of me enjoying it. Unfortunately the boss fights aren't really much better and just feel like they get in the way as something I had to do. Each one starts with a chase through fields of fire before fighting in an arena with a specific mechanic. The final boss and slight spoilers here, turns into a giant doom demon towering above you like something out of Devil May Cry that's so out of place I couldn't work out if I'd changed games by accident. It was actively comical.
A bit of a shame as the core exploration loop, wonderful vistas and music make for a great experience. Overall it's a fun game and it plays super smooth on the Playstation 5 with an easy platinum to boot. I had a good time with it, I'd recommend it but where the game veers into more adventure territory away from it's origins is where my enjoyment wobbled. Still pretty excited for their next title Swords of the Sea, now that is a Journey like!
+ Movement mechanic is fun and unique.
+ Beautiful art design and use of colours.
+ Wonderful soundtrack with a focus on drums, string and wind instruments.
- Storm sections get in the way of the game being fun.
- Boss fights are intrusive and feel out of place, especially the final boss.
- Story is uninspired.
You control a nameless archer trying to end a curse put on an island by the Godslayer corrupting the former animal gods that resided there. Each has it's own domain it rules over you have to cleanse section by section by exploring ruins and solving puzzles before culminating in a fight against the corrupted god at the end.
Exploring around, at least for me was extremely satisfying, though not at first. It has a unique mechanic where you use your bow to shoot at floating talismans by holding R2 which give you a burst of speed and an energy bar allowing you to keep running until it drains. These talismans are everywhere so if you continuously chain your shots you can smoothly sprint across the plains, fields and forests. The talismans when aiming have a bar themselves with two points, a full charge and a half charge. If you let go at the right time at the half way point you perform a 'skill shot' which means you fire faster and get a bigger speed boost. The game doesn't tell you this that I saw though and I found out by looking up trophies. with practice this can become second nature allowing a really smooth movement from location to location.
When not on a flat surface you can jump and grab onto your pet eagle to glide. shooting talismans gliding gives the same speed boost in mid air and a slight lift to keep your momentum going. The eagle can also flap to lift you a set amount up. You only have a certain amount of flaps which grow as you explore. Much of the environment has puzzles that as rewards give gold gems. Collect enough of these gives you another flap which allow you to explore and travel higher faster, getting to more puzzles to unlock more flaps. Though the flaps can take some time to unlock requiring a lot of gems I did enjoy the exploration and reward loop where they tie into each other.
The puzzles are going to be hit and miss depending on how you like your puzzling. I like mine simple enough I don't get frustrated and can work out what to do relatively quickly then spend time actioning which is what you get here. The mechanics are limited though, using your bow to light torches, or bounce arrows from mirrors mixed with using your eagle to carry pots of pull some items is your entire repertoire.
The simple puzzles and smooth traversal is exactly what I wanted. The gorgeous art design of ruins, statues, mountains and skylines accompanied by a stellar soundtrack by Austin Wintery makes playing the Pathless is a beautiful and relaxing experience.
Until it isn't.
Where my enjoyment of The Pathless comes to a screeching halt is everything related to the story. The story itself isn't very good. The Godslayer is just comically evil for no reason I can fathom. He wants to kill the gods and reforge the world for an incredibly vague reason about a path to truth and even hunting through the lore whilst exploring I couldn't see a more in depth reason then he's just a tosser. I can live with this though, it's an established trope to give an antagonist I've seen many times before. Where it really grates me though is the game actively gets in my way of enjoying it by having each corrupted animal god have a red storm in it's area until cleansed. the corrupted god is inside it and the storm moves around sometimes especially when you first enter their domain seems to home in on you. If you go into it you have to do a stealth sequence where it searches for you whilst you try to get to your eagle. If you're caught you can permanently lose some gold gems.
It's awful.
whilst exploring an area I would sometimes have to wait until the storm moved away to avoid it so I could carry on exploring. It actively gets in the way of me enjoying it. Unfortunately the boss fights aren't really much better and just feel like they get in the way as something I had to do. Each one starts with a chase through fields of fire before fighting in an arena with a specific mechanic. The final boss and slight spoilers here, turns into a giant doom demon towering above you like something out of Devil May Cry that's so out of place I couldn't work out if I'd changed games by accident. It was actively comical.
A bit of a shame as the core exploration loop, wonderful vistas and music make for a great experience. Overall it's a fun game and it plays super smooth on the Playstation 5 with an easy platinum to boot. I had a good time with it, I'd recommend it but where the game veers into more adventure territory away from it's origins is where my enjoyment wobbled. Still pretty excited for their next title Swords of the Sea, now that is a Journey like!
+ Movement mechanic is fun and unique.
+ Beautiful art design and use of colours.
+ Wonderful soundtrack with a focus on drums, string and wind instruments.
- Storm sections get in the way of the game being fun.
- Boss fights are intrusive and feel out of place, especially the final boss.
- Story is uninspired.